Shamrocks prepare for new season

Thursday

Mar 14, 2013 at 12:32 AMMar 14, 2013 at 7:31 PM

St. Pats bringing young team to the field in 2013

By Andrew Robertsandrew.roberts@sentinel-standard.com

With one of the winningest classes in the history of the Portland St. Patrick baseball program graduating last year, the 2013 Shamrock team will have a few new faces and some returning players taking on different roles.

The Shamrocks will hit the field this spring looking to keep the tradition of winning alive at Fr. Flohe Field, something coach Bryan Scheurer said is a motivating factor for his players.

"You can't replace the experience we had last year with six senior starters that won nearly 100 games together over four years and earned back-to-back trips to the state quarterfinals," he said. "But right now the strength of our team is their desire to maintain a winning culture and doing the various little things that winning programs do. We will have a lot of competition within our team to fill the many vacancies left by last year's group of seniors.

"Our goals this year are to remain competitive and play with great team-first attitude accompanied by intelligent effort."

Senior Collin Lay will return for his final season as the team's No. 1 pitcher after a strong junior campaign. Fellow classmate Caleb Lay is also expected to be part of the rotation, as well as playing third base. Junior Nate Kramer also brings pitching experience back to the St. Pats' roster.

Seniors Kyle Schrauben, Danny Beachnau, Casey Wilcox and Paul Carley will also return to the roster in 2013.

Juniors John Carley, Jake Moyer, Jake Miller and sophomore Joe Mackowiak will be the Shamrock's varsity newcomers and bring a great deal of athleticism to the team.

As usual, Scheurer is expecting the Central Michigan Athletic Conference to be tough this year. He said he expects Fowler, Pewamo-Westphalia, Potterville and Bath to be the top competition in the league.

"Fowler is in the position we were in last year with a lot of four-year seniors and P-W always has talented kids," Scheurer said. "Potterville was tough last season, too."

The Shamrocks will open the season on the road on April 8 against Ashley.